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Illustrated Guide to Astronomical Wonders - first impressions

Moonshane

By Moonshane
in Member Equipment Reviews

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Moonshane

Moonshane

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Hi all

Another member of SGL recommended this book some time ago and I finally order it new from Amazon on Saturday £16.09 delivered - amazingly it arrived today via their Super Saver Delivery service! I presume that over a certain weight they send by courier as their bulk usage discounts are cheaper than RM?

Illustrated Guide to Astronomical Wonders: From Novice to Master Observer DIY Science: Amazon.co.uk: Robert Bruce Thompson, Barbara Fritchman Thompson: Books

WOW, I mean WOW!!!

For anyone interested in astronomy from complete newbie to very experienced, and particularly for those using manually operated visual only units, I feel that on first impressions (not actually used it yet as it's not been dark since it arrived :)) this is a must buy book.

For the price alone it is worth having and the wealth of information is immense. If it were an eyepiece - it would be an Ethos as it covers such a wide range.

Within it there are 518 pages stuffed with all sorts of detail roughly summarised as follows:

Opening chapter with lots of advice of equipment, and a lot of detail on terminology etc - a great explanation of what degrees, minutes and seconds is all about etc.

After this there's the heart of the book. A chapter for each of the main northern hemisphere constellations (i.e. all of those with items on the Messier List, Best 100 (non Messier) NGC List, two binocular lists and a double star list - over 400 items to seek out).

For each constellation (listed in alphabetical order in the book), among other things, they list the best season, what it is close to and what the binocular and urban objects are. There is then a table with all the main targets and a full map of the constellation. What follows is even better. There are full descriptions of how to find all the objects listed, reasons why they might be easy or hard and also a tighter scale map (white with black dots on rather than the apparently ubiquitous blue with white dots in my other books - will be far better with the red lamp) with a 5 degree circle and also even more useful to some extent, a photo showing what you might see with a 60 degree FOV.

Usefully each page has the name of the constellation at the bottom so you don't have to be rooting in the index too much.

This is literally a 'mail order' catalogue of goodies to seek out and find (OK not literally). What's more the book is bound in such a way it lies flat.

You could use this for many years and still get a great deal from it. Buy one now I say! :hello2:

Seriously it looks amazing value and is written in a nice style by people that definitely seem to know their stuff.

I should stress again I have not yet used this in the field but it seems to be a super guide and a tool that will come in seriously handy.

I will try and add further comments as to how easy it is to use in the field.

Cheers

Shane :)

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Muddy Rutter

Muddy Rutter

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Hi Shane,

I was given a copy of this by a friend and I am very impressed, especially at that price.

As you say there is a wealth of information in there and I like it because it tells a story and makes a good adjunct to Turn Left (or is Right?) at Orion.

Best wishes

Nick

PS: I should add that it is published by O'Reilly who publish excellent IT type books, which explains why the layout is so good.

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Moonshane

Moonshane

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Hi Shane,

I was given a copy of this by a friend and I am very impressed, especially at that price.

As you say there is a wealth of information in there and I like it because it tells a story and makes a good adjunct to Turn Left (or is Right?) at Orion.

Best wishes

Nick

PS: I should add that it is published by O'Reilly who publish excellent IT type books, which explains why the layout is so good.

Nice one Nick - I agree an excellent book - funnily enough Brantuk (Kim) made exactly the same comments re O'Reilly at the weekend.

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Moonshane

Moonshane

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I'll take a look, sounds good. I have "The Backyard Astronomers Guide" which sounds quite similar in content and i found this an excellent read

Hi Martin - yes, I'd considered that one too and might be another future addition to my bookshelf.

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Moonshane

Moonshane

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Hi Shane, Good choice. Don't know if it was me who recommended it (I have been known...).

IMHO a far better buy than Turn Left at Orion.

Andrew

Hi Andrew - yes indeed it was you now you remind me! I couldn't find the original thread and hence I was a bit vague! Thanks for the recommendation in the first place.

If anyone wants a copy from Amazon I'd order soon as I've been recommending this like confetti recently :o

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Muddy Rutter

Muddy Rutter

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Morning Campers,

The book is available on amazon.com (i.e. USA) for £18.52 including delivery to UK; that is slow delivery and 'expedited' will be a bit dearer.

I quite often use amazon.com and recently bought a used CD collection much cheaper than it would have been in the UK.

Regards Nick

PS: I keep digging into this book - it really is very good and I wish I had come across it earlier. I should note that it doesn't cover the planets or the moon.

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Mouse on the Moon

Mouse on the Moon

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Hmm.

Amazon have stated the book will take about another month to arrive (ordered 1st Sep - estimated delivery up to 11th October!)

I've cancelled and ordered from the Book Depository after they emailed me back to say they should be able to get it to me in a week.

Will keep you posted.

Arrived today!

Only 5 days from order to delivery (and two of those days were a weekend) - big thumbs up for The Book Depository:icon_salut:

It certainly is a weighty tome! - enough to keep me going for years!

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malx

malx

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After reading this review I went and ordered it. I'll no doubt get Turn Left At Orion too later on but I had to start somewhere.

I ordered from Amazon.co.uk on the 20th Sept and it's on it's way now although I now see they have limited stock.

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